Alternatives to Obamacare

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epan said:
Well, they do tend to pay about $100 million per year in fines, etc… But they have not been convicted of anything criminal yet that would put them away. They did have to pay about $300 million in a wrongful death case, and their company was bribing officials in Iran to do business there.

They might not be the best poster boys for ethical conservatism.
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Tell you what, when the Koch boys catch up to these folks, let me know:

easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/812/1333789962.png

(Note: guess what the donkey means?)
(Note 2: Koch Industries is #60 on this list at $18M from 1989-2012)
(Note 3: source; Open Secrets)
 
epan said:
Hehe… well, I doubt that any of them are villains. Perhaps greedy and hard hearted. Perhaps not. I don’t know them. But there is a trend in the media to forgo any attempt at so called “fair and balanced” presentation of current events. It is all editorialized to appeal to the particular market for that media outlet. I apply this criticism to all ideological media outlets which try to pass their content along as “new” or impartial information.

My bottom line is that I disagree with calling any modern and wealthy society “just”, if it does not provide for its poorest, and it does not provide basic medical care, among other basic social services. We have the resources to provide medical care, and basic housing, food and education to everyone. As a society, we are choosing not to do that. Just consider for a moment that about 10% of the population owns about 90% of the assets in our country, and a majority of the income. That means that the remaining 90% of the population is living on 10% or so of our resources. What if the top 10% only owned 75% of the country? Would that be enough? That scenario would more than double the resources available to the rest of the population, and the royalty could still remain multi multi billionaires, not that a billion dollars buys what it used to… We can certainly empathize when someone has to downsize to a 200 ft boat, and a plane that can only go 3,500 miles between fuel stops.
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I seem to detect a bit of “class envy” in this post. Which is exactly the goal of this current administration. Drive a wedge between rich and poor and middle class. Expand the divide between Faith and secularism. Separate Americans by playing the extreme fringes against one another. On and on…

You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
**You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. **
**You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. **
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

The question of “where will the money come from” is NOT a red herring. It is very valid. The answer is obvious. If a prosperous society is to provide for the poor…the money comes from the producers. (Rich).

Our government has been taking billions $$$ from the productive sector of our society and giving it to the poor since LBJ declared was on poverty. There are now more “poor” than ever…and they are demanding more.

My bottom line is this simple question: If we are supposed to help others…what are the others supposed to do?
 
JB_Dugan said:
I seem to detect a bit of “class envy” in this post. Which is exactly the goal of this current administration. Drive a wedge between rich and poor and middle class. Expand the divide between Faith and secularism. Separate Americans by playing the extreme fringes against one another. On and on…
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But we do have a divide in this country and it is not between rich and poor. it is between makers and takers. On one side is a spectrum from the homeless person who does not get a dime from the government to the stereotypical self made millionaire. on the other side it is from the stereotypical welfare bum to the billionaire who got rich off of sweetheart deals with buddies they helped to get elected. We need to recognize that they are driving a wedge and understand what that wedge is.

We also need to understand when to fight city hall and when to accept reality as it is and play the game they want to play.
 
What is sad but somewhat humorous in the entire Obamacare debate is that they actually looked at a way to avoid this entire mess and accomplish their stated goals, ie., covering those with pre-existing conditions, covering those who could not afford insurance, etc. but they rejected it.

The “public option” is what it was called, but some form of it would have been sufficient. Just set up an insurance plan, government funded and means tested to cover those the industry would not. A lot less cost and they would not have had to mess with anyone else’s insurance. A simple parallel government plan introduced into the market place. Leave the rest alone.

In principle it would have been called welfare or something like that by its opponents but it would have been much more practical in the long run. And, for those who desire single payer, in the long haul it would have actually accomplished that end. That is much the way it was done in the Canadian market in the beginning and eventually, when large enough numbers of people gravitated to it, it became single payer by default.
 
JB_Dugan said:
I seem to detect a bit of “class envy” in this post. Which is exactly the goal of this current administration. Drive a wedge between rich and poor and middle class. Expand the divide between Faith and secularism. Separate Americans by playing the extreme fringes against one another. On and on…

You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
**You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. **
**You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. **
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

The question of “where will the money come from” is NOT a red herring. It is very valid. The answer is obvious. If a prosperous society is to provide for the poor…the money comes from the producers. (Rich).

Our government has been taking billions $$$ from the productive sector of our society and giving it to the poor since LBJ declared was on poverty. There are now more “poor” than ever…and they are demanding more.

My bottom line is this simple question: If we are supposed to help others…what are the others supposed to do?
Click to expand...
No class envy here. I was was raised with the proverbial silver spoon. But I do provide medical care to some very poor people, and that has always been my preference in my medical practice. My bias has multiple sources. On the one hand, I did take family vacations on private planes, and boats. A ski vacation often meant using a helo. I have socialized with peers at the best schools, from families who have attended them for generations. On the other hand, I have chosen to work in my professional life for a purpose, and not particularly for a paycheck. It would take 2-3 years of a physician’s gross pay to refuel a super yacht just once, anyway.

Read what you will into my motives, but consider that there is an interesting correlation between income distribution and social welfare. Whether you measure educational levels, life expectancy, child welfare, social mobility, etc… pretty much every measure of societal success, it turns out that flatter income distribution is associated with success. Wide income disparity is associated with failure, in a relative scale. Today, japan and Sweden are the winners by this measure. The US is dead last in all measures of this type. One surprising statistic is that the rich do better by many of these measures, when they have less money, but live in a more successful society. Japan achieves thus culturally and legally by limiting income at the top. Sweden does it through taxation and social programs. So, it appears that the mechanism of income and social services distribution is less important than that it happens somehow.

Whether you agree with the results of those studies or not, there is still the social justice issue. I make the claim that rather than to spend $800,000 to refuel a 300 ft long pleasure boat, that money could better be used to alleviate suffering, and that no person needs a private Hawaiian island the size of Lanai, when the money for that purchase could be used for social good. There is a growing obscenity in the elimination of the middle classes.

I am also concerned that if we don’t fix this problem, then there may well be violent revolution within a generation or two. In our current course, I predict that things will get much worse very quickly, as technology replaces muddle class work, and serves to accumulate ever more at the top. History has given us some examples of where we might be headed, unless we can figure out how to better handle the changes in economic systems which are accelerating. This is a structural problem, which we have not effectively addressed.
 
uther said:
What is sad but somewhat humorous in the entire Obamacare debate is that they actually looked at a way to avoid this entire mess and accomplish their stated goals, ie., covering those with pre-existing conditions, covering those who could not afford insurance, etc. but they rejected it.

The “public option” is what it was called, but some form of it would have been sufficient. Just set up an insurance plan, government funded and means tested to cover those the industry would not. A lot less cost and they would not have had to mess with anyone else’s insurance. A simple parallel government plan introduced into the market place. Leave the rest alone.

In principle it would have been called welfare or something like that by its opponents but it would have been much more practical in the long run. And, for those who desire single payer, in the long haul it would have actually accomplished that end. That is much the way it was done in the Canadian market in the beginning and eventually, when large enough numbers of people gravitated to it, it became single payer by default.
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And I am sure they would have run the public option with the same level of expertise they did their Website
 
SamH said:
Except it didn’t happen that way at all - if that was the plan. Even the Penn family lost their colony.
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His post was excellent, and you choose to attack what you perceived to be the weak spot. I guess you thought that you had to respond. This is how generals loose wars by the way.

Like a lot of people I’m really tired of the revisionism that is thrown around these days. Of course the goal was to throw the British off of their property. Many of the founding fathers who pledged their fortunes in fact lost them. The less fortunate lost their lives.

ATB
 
The foundational problem with ANY health system is that we must ration health care. We must ration health care because there will ALWAYS be a greater demand for health care than there is a supply. As new technologies and therapies come open, more people will want them.

In a perfect free market system, health care is rationed by who can afford it. In a perfect socialist market system, health care is rationed by bureaucrats who determine who gets what.

If our politicians, or more importantly our voters, could understand this, they could better decide where on the spectrum between these to extremes we want to be.

My suggestion is this: Have a three tier national health system. The first tier is for anyone who is here, legal or illegal, and this consists of public health prevention measures - ie: vaccinations, neonatal care, etc…things that we want EVERYONE to have because it negatively affects all of us (herd immunity, etc). The second tier is for all legal US citizens, and includes a higher level of preventive care services - routine physicals, routine chronic health management (asthma, htn, diabetes, etc). What the government pays for this second tier should be set at the state levels to determine. The third tier is strictly market, and is between the consumer, their insurance, and the provider. If the consumer wants an all-inclusive policy, they can pay for it. Likewise, if the consumer simply wants a catastrophic coverage policy, they can pay (less) for that as well.

The federal gov’t pays for tier one, the states pay for tier two, and the person pays for tier three.

Oh, and real tort reform in the form of medical malpractice jury made up of the physician’s peers.
 
The best way to solve the issue is “single-payor”. Issue any US citizen a medicare card and all would be done and nothing needing to be done.
 
And we would get lower quality care and wait in line for months for procedures that are routine now.
 
epan said:
No class envy here. I was was raised with the proverbial silver spoon. But I do provide medical care to some very poor people, and that has always been my preference in my medical practice. My bias has multiple sources. On the one hand, I did take family vacations on private planes, and boats. A ski vacation often meant using a helo. I have socialized with peers at the best schools, from families who have attended them for generations. On the other hand, I have chosen to work in my professional life for a purpose, and not particularly for a paycheck. It would take 2-3 years of a physician’s gross pay to refuel a super yacht just once, anyway.

Read what you will into my motives, but consider that there is an interesting correlation between income distribution and social welfare. Whether you measure educational levels, life expectancy, child welfare, social mobility, etc… pretty much every measure of societal success, it turns out that flatter income distribution is associated with success. Wide income disparity is associated with failure, in a relative scale. Today, japan and Sweden are the winners by this measure. The US is dead last in all measures of this type. One surprising statistic is that the rich do better by many of these measures, when they have less money, but live in a more successful society. Japan achieves thus culturally and legally by limiting income at the top. Sweden does it through taxation and social programs. So, it appears that the mechanism of income and social services distribution is less important than that it happens somehow.

Whether you agree with the results of those studies or not, there is still the social justice issue. I make the claim that rather than to spend $800,000 to refuel a 300 ft long pleasure boat, that money could better be used to alleviate suffering, and that no person needs a private Hawaiian island the size of Lanai, when the money for that purchase could be used for social good. There is a growing obscenity in the elimination of the middle classes.

I am also concerned that if we don’t fix this problem, then there may well be violent revolution within a generation or two. In our current course, I predict that things will get much worse very quickly, as technology replaces muddle class work, and serves to accumulate ever more at the top. History has given us some examples of where we might be headed, unless we can figure out how to better handle the changes in economic systems which are accelerating. This is a structural problem, which we have not effectively addressed.
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Very interesting!

I was not exactly raised with the proverbial silver spoon. I earned it, more or less.

My compliments on your generosity with your time for poor patients. I have always felt more gratification providing something for others on my own terms.

I don’t think Japan and Sweden are the best examples to prove your point. Japan has a societal work ethic that Western culture can’t fathom. Also their welfare system is split between corporations and the government.

Sweden is a prime example of what happens when you go out of your way to try and save a welfare state that is sucking the life out of the private sector. They have everything from deteriorating schools to a health care system in real crisis.

Young Swedes are not only unemployed by the masses, they are leaving the country in desperate pursuit of a life. Those who stay are stuck living with their parents at alarming rates.

The real social threat to Sweden is the mass immigration of welfare-dependent illiterates from the poorest corners of the Third World.

Your claim about the $800,000 to refuel a 300 ft long pleasure boat, that money could better be used to alleviate suffering, and that no person needs a private Hawaiian island the size of Lanai, when the money for that purchase could be used for social good…is laudable but not realistic.

The accumulation of wealth imposes no obligations. Spending $800,000 to refuel a yacht and spending the money to build a 300 ft one, probably provides more jobs, taxes and benefits to more people than some charities give away annually.

Remember when the government imposed a “luxury tax” on yachts constructed in the U.S.? I do. At that time, it was idealistic and simple to understand — only the rich can afford luxury items, and a tax on the rich fulfills social justice.

However, two years after its introduction, the “luxury tax” was repealed…because the tax revenues were disappointing and the livelihoods of common folks who made a living by selling “luxury items” were negatively impacted. It nearly wiped out the boat building industry in our country.

You may be able to afford a private island. But if you choose to give to charity instead, that is your choice and is, of course, commendable. Keep in mind that your donation may not produce the same benefits that your purchase could.
 
JB_Dugan said:
How much does the Dept of Health & Human Services pay you for posting that link?
Do they pay you for the amount of hits, or just a flat fee?

:mad:
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This person (maloufha) only seems to be posting links on bit.ly once every other month. In general the number of clicks is moderate. So far 21 people have clicked on the link above (not very high). If there’s pay for clicks it probably hasn’t accumulated to much.

I wouldn’t waste my time getting mad though. I don’t think s/he read our comments.
 
Please be aware that unscrupulous individuals may post links designed to get your personal information and potentially steal your identity.

Thank you for reporting this.

Such a link has now been removed and the miscreant dealt with offline.

Please be careful people.
 
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